Poetic Interlude

Not to replace Thursday's scheduled BBP, here are a few pieces I wrote at dinner last night.

+++++

motive

this is what i'm reduced to:
passing half-smiles from
disappearing strangers
have become the instant highlight
of my week.
this is why i came here,
to this culinary crossroads
heavily traversed by the tired and
isolated--so that i can achieve
the illusion of community,
the unspoken wisp of attraction,
the counterfeit of affection,
in the momentary glance of
a girl with dark hair.

+++++

keep working

i don't want to keep
working so hard at
becoming 'the type
they want.' i'd rather
be 'the type they don't.'
not because i'd be
happier so much,
but because i'd
feel less like a
fraud. as it stands,
i fear being driven
by the ideal, that
i lose the ability
to find peace with
my unsophisticated,
unkempt, ungraceful,
unattractive self.

+++++

the big question

"how am i not myself?"
i keep hearing him ask
and though i have never
committed the cardinal sin
of telling the tuna story
ad nauseum, i know in
my deconstructed core that
i am guilty of self-betrayals
just as heartless.
when i pretend to agree
while my heart screams in
protest, when i present
disinterest to hide my
adoration, when i recant
and fold my convictions
to cash in on the evils around me,
i take the thirty silver coins,
and kiss myself on the cheek,
betraying my mother's only son
to a fate worse than mere death.